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BrainGate: Demystifying Psychology Research at Western Washington University
No full textResearch assistantships during undergraduate study bolster professional expertise and provide hands-on experiences in psychology. Despite the countless research labs at Western Washington University (WWU) that entail creating, executing, and publishing research, many students feel they have no idea how to access these opportunities. Braingate is an attempt to demystify the process. As a website that provides concise and easily-accessible information about current psychology and behavioral neuroscience labs and how to contact the faculty that run them, Braingate bridges the gap between psychology students and their goals. During the development process, I collected self-report survey data from both students and faculty in the psychology department about their experiences assisting in or facilitating research labs to better understand the current system and to identify potential improvements. Of the student respondents (n = 43), approximately 90% were upperclassmen (Juniors and Seniors). Over 85% reported wanting to work in a research lab, yet only 37% currently do. When asked if they believe pursuing research as an undergraduate is difficult, the majority of respondents said yes, citing feeling lost or confused about how to go about the process. Many respondents also reported delaying their application to graduate school due to a lack of proper experience. Faculty, on the other hand, reported a lack of streamlined recruitment processes, leading to inadequate sourcing of assistants who possess motivation and drive for the topics being studied. Many of the website’s resources and frequently-asked questions are pulled directly from these testimonies. BrainGate also includes access to other resources relevant to undergraduate psychology students, such as how to write CVs, develop applications, find volunteer opportunities, and bolster research skills. The site promotes resources from within WWU, as well as from organizations or academics outside of our university. I worked closely with those in the psychology department to create a site that would be effective resource for years to come
The Same and Different Rivers
No full textThese four interconnected short stories are an exploration of the intricacies of normal human existence in times of apocalypse and upheaval.
Though it can be easy to forget as they go about their lives, navigating family, art, and the unhidden past, the characters in The Same and Different Rivers exist in a world about to end. Living between the hills, prairies and rivers of Eastern Washington, they grapple with unpredictable weather and unbreathable air. A climate crisis makes every choice simultaneously futile and essential.
Through the rampage of modern life runs a river, swelling and drying up like a living lung. After meeting a stranger whose life entwines with hers at a shocking speed, a woman finds her history unearthed by water. Decades earlier, her grandmother contemplates how much control she has over her existence. In the near future, a person’s connection to the river causes them to undergo physical transformations. And even further ahead in the apocalypse, another woman struggles to understand prophetic messages left by a dead artist.
Connected by water that refuses to conform to expectations, these stories are at once eerily familiar and utterly strange. Wrestling their way through catastrophes both personal and existential, fostering hatred and love for good reasons and hollow ones, characters embody the questions that define life right now, as well as those that construct our uncertain future
Line Dancing with the Land: Embodying Place and Community
No full textWith communities around the world facing intensifying impacts of climate change and increased risk to natural hazard events, fostering tight-knit and resilient communities is necessary now more than ever. In this paper, I synthesize pre-existing research examining the value of dance – especially outdoor, communal dance – as an opportunity to create connection to self, land, and others. I also review historical/social patterns that have created a barrier in land-body connections in settler colonial culture. An additional component of this capstone, which is summarized and discussed in this essay, is an outdoor movement session which I hosted for WWU students as well as Bellingham community members at a city park, which was followed by an open discussion regarding my aforementioned research topics. By combining these approaches to understanding the value of outdoor community dance as an intervention towards resilience, I have underlined a yearning for joyful spaces of creativity, opportunities to connect with the land in reinvigorating ways, a hope for long-lasting community spaces, and an understanding of the impacts of settler colonialism on our role within nature. Through this collection of knowledge, I encourage readers to seek out ways to join or create communities that emphasize these strengths, and to center joy and dance amidst challenging and destructive times
Sex Ratios of Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina) Haul Out Sites in the Salish Sea
No full textHarbor seals (Phoca vitulina) are the most abundant marine mammals in the Salish Sea, with frequent interactions with humans and predation on declining Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) populations. We evaluated proximity to both human disturbance and prey availability relative to sex ratio of 14 haul out sites in the Salish Sea. Due to higher adult salmon proportion in diet and potentially higher risk-tolerance, we hypothesized that male dominated haul out sites would be found in areas of high human disturbance and closer to salmon runs. As a proxy for human disturbance, we collected data on marina locations and accounted for areas with vessel traffic. From public data of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Canada’s New Salmon Escapement Database System, we compiled salmon run abundance and location data. Coordinate, area and abundance data were mapped with ArcGIS Pro to extract the proximities of marinas and salmon runs to each haul out site. All male dominated sites were \u3c 3 km to the nearest marina, while all female dominated and evenly split sites were \u3e 3 km, except Gertrude Island. No clear relationship was found between sex ratios and proximity to salmon runs. Density of salmon runs or marinas showed no clear relationship with haul out sites. Data indicate that, unlike males, female harbor seals prefer haul out sites further from human disturbance. We suggest that future pinniped management should consider increased risk-tolerance of male harbor seals when evaluating the Salish Sea populations through scat genetics or survey counts.
(As the paper for this study will be submitted elsewhere, a personal reflection will act as a placeholder until the published research paper can be linked
A Nervous System
No full textIn this interdisciplinary project, I explore color theory through literary research, and conduct experiential research on color through screen printing. I completed a screen print body of work relating to anxiety, somatics, and color in visually communicating experiences of the body. Each of the three prints metaphorize a specific feeling of anxiety that I have personally noticed, and uses whimsical form and bright color to show the intensity of these feelings. I used a combination of drawn stencils, photo stencils, and scanned magazine letters to create her layered images. In order to display my work, I co-curated an art show in the WWU B-Gallery themed around the idea of Guts that featured work of thirteen WWU artists and alumni
Making a Person out of Scrap Paper: An Essay Collection
No full textThis nonfiction essay collection seeks to critically examine the relationship between history, identity, and the current state of the world. It contains five essays in total, covering a wide range of topics from the atomic bombing of Japan to the history of hysteria. Thematically, it looks at issues of betweenness, place, and community by using a variety of experimental essay structures, including one essay that is formatted as a deck of cards. Together, these essays paint a distinct picture of identity that escapes easy definition
Institute for Watershed Studies Research Assistant
No full textThe Northwest Lake Monitoring program, which aims to collect data on lakes around Bellingham, and create a database where any trends can be identified. The Lake Whatcom project, which has similar goals, but focuses solely on Lake Whatcom, and samples it much more frequently and thoroughly. While working on these projects, I have learned so much about how data is collected in the field, and how a lab works outside of a classroom setting
The Body Electric: Examining Intersections of Neuroscience, Disability, and Teaching
No full textIn this portfolio I describe my experiences as an undergraduate TA in an introductory Critical Disability Studies course. I also provide a discussion surrounding the lesson I developed and taught independently, as well as thumbnails of the slides that I used. I also discuss my capstone presentation and the skills I built during this capstone. As some of the things I did were intangible, I discuss my experience and the things that I learned
How does being a fully EV automotive firm affect performance?
No full textThis study investigates whether being a fully electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer affects firm performance, using a panel of 15 global automakers from 1999 to 2023. Three EV-only firms—Tesla, BYD, and Rivian—are compared against traditional manufacturers using two financial metrics: return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). Guided by Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation and the distinction between radical and incremental innovation, the analysis explores the short-term trade-offs of adopting a fully electric strategy. Results from fixed-effects regression models reveal that EV-only firms experience a statistically significant 22.27 percentage point reduction in ROA, reflecting lower operational efficiency. While the ROE estimate is also negative, it is not statistically significant, suggesting greater variability in shareholder outcomes. These findings suggest that while EV-only firms are positioned for long-term transformation, they face real short-term performance costs tied to capital intensity, vertical integration, and evolving value networks. The study highlights the strategic and financial risks of radical innovation and offers practical recommendations for managing these trade-offs through scalable operations, strategic partnerships, and transparent investor communication
Exploring Manganese, Zinc and Iron behavior in a Constructed Wetland
No full textThe constructed wetland on Western Washington University’s (WWU) south campus has been a constant presence in mitigating the campus’s stormwater runoff. This area is sampled regularly as part of the Environmental Science’s Water Quality course, taught every quarter throughout the year for the past decade. However, only recently have metals been sampled, where in Fall of 2023 metal concentrations (ppb) decreased from the inlet to the outlet (manganese concentrations fell from 264.0 ppb to 76.1 ppb; zinc concentrations fell from 13.5 ppb to 5.47 ppb). In Spring of 2023, manganese concentrations on average increased from the inlet to the outlet (7.57 ppb to 461.0 ppb). The Spring 2023 data seems incongruent with current literature which suggests that metal concentrations decrease after passing through a constructed wetland as they are subject to uptake from sedimentation and vegetation, which are each additionally influenced by redox conditions. As a result of this knowledge gap, from late January 2025 through mid-May 2025, the redox conditions of WWU’s south campus constructed wetland were investigated to determine the speciation, bioavailability, transport, and retention of three metals: zinc, manganese, and iron. Samples were collected from the incoming parking lot stormwater runoff, the inlet of the wetland, the wetland’s outlet, and connecting surface water of Connelly Creek. Aqueous samples were collected and water quality parameters assessed (temperature, pH, conductivity, and ORP). Metal concentrations were analyzed using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). It was determined that temperature, conductivity, pH, and ORP did not provide enough information to fully explain the data collected, showing that future work involving more sampling sites, parameters, and year-long sampling would benefit the future understanding of this constructed wetland